RIGHTS-NIGERIA: Murder of Student Sparks Public Outrage

By Toye Olori Reprint | | Print |

Toye Olori

LAGOS, Jun 22 2002 (IPS) - The bullet that cut short Oluwatosin’s life came without warning. Oluwatosin, a 15-year-old student, was shot dead on Jun 14 after a bus conductor refused to pay the police a two-cent bribe, according to eyewitnesses.

Commercial bus operators have often complained about harassment at police checkpoints on the eight-kilometre road between Lagos and Ogun states in south-western Nigeria.

The roadblocks are necessary, say police, to monitor armed robbers and car-jackers sneaking into neighbouring Benin Republic. But the checkpoints have turned out to be a nuisance to commuters, motorists and commercial vehicle operators who have to bribe to get free passage.

“It doesn’t matter if the commercial vehicle has particulars or not, once you are stopped, you have to bribe (the police), if not you will be delayed. Our work doesn’t allow for delays because we have to deliver (the daily take) to the vehicle owner every evening. That is why we pay the bribe,” says Baba Sahid, a bus driver in Lagos.

Banjo Peters of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (Ogun-chapter) says “Saka (the policeman accused of murdering the teenage student) had been harassing motorists for years. But now he has landed himself in trouble by shooting dead that student who was a passenger inside a commercial vehicle”.

“We don’t know why these policemen always move out of their zone of jurisdiction in Lagos and cross into Ogun State to extort money from motorists everyday?” Peters wonders.

Emmanuel Bamgbose, the driver of the ill-fated bus, narrates how Oluwatosin was killed after the conductor refused to pay another 20 Naira (two cents).

“The Police demanded another 20 Naira from us in the afternoon, during our return trip. The conductor reminded them that we had paid, but they insisted on taking another money,” Bamgbose explains.

“We were still arguing when a policeman crossed over from the other side of the road and immediately opened fire on the bus which hit the girl sitting at the back, killing her instantly,” he says.

But a police spokesperson, expressing regrets over the killing of the girl, denies that the incident was a result of a bribe. He says the driver was moving recklessly when the police, failing to stop him, fired at the bus.

Oluwatosin was laid to rest on Jun 18 amidst wailing from her colleagues who dressed in school uniform as a show of solidarity. During the funeral, the students, carrying placards, condemned the killing.

Delivering the sermon, Pastor Gabriel Okedoyin said: “Undisciplined men, who are supposed to provide security to the people, cut Oluwatosin’s life short. They are not supposed to be killers, but keepers. It is unfortunate that keepers have become killers and we can only run to God in the midst of all these troubles.”

Jide Adelugba, the family spokesperson, called on the government to ensure that Oluwatosin’s death marked an end to extra-judicial killings in Nigeria.

The Lagos-based Civil Liberty Organisation (CLO) described the killing as a rude shock and called on the authorities to rise up to the task of ridding the police of bad eggs, before more innocent children are killed.

Femi Koya, a top CLO official, calls for better condition of service for the police force to ensure that the average policeman on the street is rehabilitated considering that their psyche has been battered over the years of military rule.

The organisation also urged the newly constituted Police Service Commission to urgently recommend training curriculum for police recruits to be updated by incorporating a number of courses in human rights, psychology, modern investigative procedures.

“This is one of the best ways of preventing a repeat of Friday’s (Jun 14) incident in Lagos, in which the 15-year-old school girl was killed in cold blood by a policeman,” said the CLO in a statement, following the student’s murder.

Segun Jegede of the Lagos-based Committee for the Defence of Human Rights (CDHR) says “the killing shows that we are still not out of the woods. It is a further testimony that we have not moved from the despotic past of military rule. Its a shame we lay claim to democracy while the government is busy putting in place ‘Operation Fire for Fire’ in the police force, to harass innocent citizens”.

Nigeria, with a population of about 120 million, returned to civil rule in 1999 after years of military rule.

But the return of multiparty democracy has not ended extra-judicial killings in Nigeria. The Committee for the Defence of Human Rights has documented a number of such murders. They include one which occured “on May 3, when 46-year-old Mufutau Ajibade Shittu, a Senior Inspector with the First Bank of Nigeria PLC was shot and killed by two policemen on the pretext that he was a robber.”

Shittu, who had gone to audit in Kogi State, had retired to a hotel to spend the night when he met his death.

Another victim, Adewale Afolayan, a driver at the University of Lagos, was shot dead, while returning to his residence, for refusal to pay a 20-Naira bribe.